I got a CLD-D406 a few months ago. I've noticed that there's some noise in the signal. I've mainly been using it to capture video to PC.

I figured that viewing the image on a sharp PC screen is just making noise more obvious that one wouldn't have noticed in the old CRT days when LaserDisc was still alive. Finally tonight out of curiousity, I hooked it up to the only CRT I still have in the house. I still see pretty noticeable noise. Mainly chroma noise I believe. I'm linking a video I took, you can really notice it on black sections of the image. Ignore the occasional green/black flashes, that's of course just the camera's shutter speed not playing nicely with the TV.

http://108.61.202.214/laserdisc_noise.mp4

I hope the video is clear enough. It doesn't matter what disc I play, this noise is present. Is there something wrong with the player? Crosstalk? Is the laser out of alignment, or is this normal for LaserDisc? I might just be expecting too much from a 40 year old format.

EDIT: It's actually most noticeable on heavily saturated reds or purples. Other things like flesh tones look pretty great for example.

I would put my bet on bad/aging caps.

It looks like some of the video filtering is not properly done.
Could be a slightly defective video circuitry?

Julien

In my opinion, I feel that maybe the brightness on the displays you are using are set too high.

I felt the video you showed was a bit washed out and as many who understand the LaserDisc format (as well as VHS and other analog systems), video is set at 7.5 IRE unlike DVD and other formats now settling with 0 IRE now.

In other words, you set the brightness too high, you get more video noise. Try and play a LaserDisc that is widescreen and set the brightness down until the black bars are as black as they can be and judge the picture based on that. You might want to also turn the color down a bit if it appears too vivid as you get more saturation noise.

If you are past 20 and have that good of eyesight that you can see something on the screen
that can only be posted with a camera that close you have other issues to worry about.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Yeah, I don't have the remote for this TV anymore so I can't change brightness settings. That did cross my mind too.

I had a feeling I was just being super nitpicky about it, I mean you can only get so much out of analog RF encoded composite video. Just trying to be sure my new player is working like it should be because my main use for the moment for it is archiving certain discs to digital format so I want it as clean as possible.

Here's a raw direct composite capture sample saved lossless. I guess this is this about the best I can expect out of a LaserDisc? I think it looks pretty good with higher quality discs, but just wondering if the noise level is worse than it should be. It actually looked worse on the TV than when capturing to PC.

http://108.61.202.214/matrix-sample.avi

My only other point of reference is the old, low end LD-V2200 I've had for ages.

Looks about right for a 406 paired with a 2D comb filter.